L’artiste chinois Ai Weiwei a récemment exposé son projet impressionnant « Evidence » au musée Martin-Gropius-Bau à Berlin. L’exposition s’étend sur 3000 mètres carré et 18 pièces. L’installation centrale appelée « Stools » contient 6000 tabourets en bois trouvés un peu partout dans zones rurales chinoises.
« Evidence » sera exposée jusqu’au 7 Juillet.
The Serpentine Gallery in London has unveiled plans by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei for this summer’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion: they’ll conduct an archaeological dig to find traces of past pavilions on the site then line the resulting trenches with cork.
The plan involves excavating down to groundwater level, revealing buried traces of the past eleven annual pavilions and creating a well at the bottom that will also collect rainwater.
A pool of water will also cover the surface of the circular roof, supported just 1.4 metres above the ground by twelve columns that represent pavilions past and present. It will be possible to drain this water down into the well to create an elevated viewing platform or dance floor.
The temporary pavilion will open to the public on 1 June and will remain in Kensington Gardens until 14 October.
The twelfth annual pavilion follows previous structures by architects including Peter Zumthor, Jean Nouvel, SANAA and Frank Gehry. You can see images of them all here, watch our interview with Peter Zumthor at the opening of last year’s pavilion on Dezeen Screen and read even more about the pavilions in our Dezeen Book of Ideas.
See also: more stories about Herzog & de Meuron and more stories about Ai Weiwei.
Here’s some more information from the Serpentine Gallery:
Serpentine Gallery reveals plans for Pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
The Serpentine Gallery today released plans for the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. It will be the twelfth commission in the Gallery’s annual series, the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind.
The design team responsible for the celebrated Beijing National Stadium, which was built for the 2008 Olympic Games, comes together again in London in 2012 for the Serpentine’s acclaimed annual commission, being presented as part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad. The Pavilion is Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei’s first collaborative built structure in the UK.
This year’s Pavilion will take visitors beneath the Serpentine’s lawn to explore the hidden history of its previous Pavilions. Eleven columns characterising each past Pavilion and a twelfth column representing the current structure will support a floating platform roof 1.4 metres above ground. The Pavilion’s interior will be clad in cork, a sustainable building material chosen for its unique qualities and to echo the excavated earth. Taking an archaeological approach, the architects have created a design that will inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures.
Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine Gallery, said: “It is a great honour to be working with Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, the design team behind Beijing’s superb Bird’s Nest Stadium. In this exciting year for London we are proud to be creating a connection between the Beijing 2008 and the London 2012 Games. We are enormously grateful for the help of everyone involved, especially Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal, whose incredible support has made this project possible.”
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion will operate as a public space and as a venue for Park Nights, the Gallery’s high-profile programme of public talks and events. Connecting to the archaeological focus of the Pavilion design, Park Nights will culminate in October with the Serpentine Gallery Memory Marathon, the latest edition of the annual Serpentine Marathon series conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, now in its seventh year. The Marathon series began in 2006 with the 24-hour Serpentine Gallery Interview Marathon; followed by the Experiment Marathon in 2007; the Manifesto Marathon in 2008; the Poetry Marathon in 2009, the Map Marathon in 2010 and the Garden Marathon in 2011.
The 2012 Pavilion has been purchased by Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal and will enter their private collection after it closes to the public in October 2012.
Dezeen Wire: a documentary about controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei filmed by American journalist Alison Klayman is now screening at the Berlin International Film Festival. The movie follows the artist from 2009, when he was preparing for the Sunflower Seeds installation at Tate Modern, up until his release from 81 days of detention.
Here’s the trailer:
In a review of the documentary, journalist Andrew Pulver claims that the movie’s merits lie within the luck of Klayman to have been “in the right place at the right time” but that the editing “has been done with lucidity and no little degree of intelligent sympathy” – Guardian.
Dezeen Wire: Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will collaborate on the design of this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in Kensington Gardens, London, which will tunnel underground.
They plan to install a series of columns below the surface of the lawn to represent each past pavilion as well as the present one, supporting a floating roof just 1.5 metres above the ground.
In accordance with the selection rules the temporary pavilion will be the pair’s first joint commission in the UK, although it won’t be the first building by Herzog & de Meuron in London.
Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei famously teamed up to co-design the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic games.
The twelfth annual pavilion follows previous structures by architects including Peter Zumthor, Jean Nouvel, SANAA and Frank Gehry. You can see images of them all here, watch our interview with Peter Zumthor at the opening of last year’s pavilion on Dezeen Screen and read even more about the pavilions in our Dezeen Book of Ideas.
See also: more stories about Herzog & de Meuron and more stories about Ai Weiwei.
Here’s the full press release from the Serpentine Gallery:
Revealed: Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei to design Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012
The Serpentine Gallery is proud to announce that Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei will create the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. It will be the twelfth commission in the Gallery’s annual series, the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind.
The design team responsible for the celebrated Beijing National Stadium, which was built for the 2008 Olympic Games and won the prestigeous RIBA Lubetkin Prize, will come together again in London in 2012 in a special development of the Serpentine’s acclaimed annual commission which will be presented as part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad. The Pavilion will be Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei’s first collaborative built structure in the UK.
This year’s Pavilion will take visitors beneath the Serpentine’s lawn to explore the hidden history of its previous Pavilions. Eleven columns characterising each past Pavilion and a twelfth column will support a floating platform roof 1.5 metres above ground. Taking an archaeological approach, the architects have created a design that will inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures.
Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine Gallery, said: “It is a great honour to be working with Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. We are delighted that our annual commission will bring this unique architectural collaboration to Europe to mark the continuity between the Beijing 2008 and the London 2012 Games.”
Describing their design concept Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei said: “Every year since 2000, a different architect has been responsible for creating the Serpentine Gallery’s summer Pavilion for Kensington Gardens. That makes eleven Pavilions so far, our contribution will be the twelfth. So many Pavilions in so many different shapes and out of so many different materials have been conceived and built that we tried instinctively to sidestep the unavoidable problem of creating an object, a concrete shape.
“Our path to an alternative solution involves digging down some five feet into the soil of the park until we reach the groundwater. There we dig a waterhole, a kind of well, to collect all of the London rain that falls in the area of the Pavilion. In that way we incorporate an otherwise invisible aspect of reality in the park – the water under the ground – into our Pavilion. As we dig down into the earth we encounter a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables and former foundations.
Like a team of archaeologists, we identify these physical fragments as remains of the eleven Pavilions built between 2000 and 2011. Their shape varies: circular, long and narrow, dots and also large, constructed hollows that have been filled in. These remains testify to the existence of the former Pavilions and their greater or lesser intervention in the natural environment of the park.
“All of these foundations will now be uncovered and reconstructed. The old foundations form a jumble of convoluted lines, like a sewing pattern. A distinctive landscape emerges out of the reconstructed foundations which is unlike anything we could have invented; its form and shape is actually a serendipitous gift. The three-dimensional reality of this landscape is astonishing and it is also the perfect place to sit, stand, lie down or just look and be amazed. In other words, the ideal environment for continuing to do what visitors have been doing in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions over the past eleven years – and a discovery for the many new visitors anticipated for the London 2012 Olympic Games.”
On the foundations of each single Pavilion, we extrude a new structure (supports, walls) as load-bearing elements for the roof of our Pavilion – eleven supports all told, plus our own column that we can place at will, like a wild card. The roof resembles that of an archaeological site. It floats some five feet above the grass of the park, so that everyone visiting can see the water on it, its surface reflecting the infinitely varied, atmospheric skies of London. For special events, the water can be drained off the roof as from a bathtub, from whence it flows back into the waterhole, the deepest point in the Pavilion landscape. The dry roof can then be used as a dance floor or simply as a platform suspended above the park.
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion will operate as a public space and as a venue for Park Nights, the Gallery’s high-profile programme of public talks and events.
Connecting to the archaeological focus of the Pavilion design Park Nights will culminate in October with the Serpentine Gallery Memory Marathon, the latest edition of the annual Serpentine Marathon series conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, now in its seventh year. The Marathon series began in 2006 with the 24-hour Serpentine Gallery Interview Marathon; followed by the Experiment Marathon in 2007; The Manifesto Marathon in 2008; the Poetry Marathon in 2009, the Map Marathon in 2010 and the Garden Marathon in 2011.
Dezeen Wire: supporters of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei have been posting photos of themselves naked on a website as a protest against the Beijing police’s decision to question his assistant, who had taken nude pictures of the artist and four women – The Telegraph
Ai was detained for 81 days earlier this year by the Chinese government on charges of tax evasion, during which time he was also asked about the photographs that he says have no deeper political meaning.
Dezeen Wire: artist Ai Weiwei, architect Bjarke Ingels and designer Joris Laarman are among the winners of WSJ. Magazine‘s first Innovator of the Year Awards, a prize honouring the world’s most creative and progressive individuals.
The winners were chosen by editors of the Wall Street Journal and a panel of experts and will be presented with the awards (designed by Laarman) at a ceremony at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on Thursday.
Here is some more information from WSJ. Magazine, including the full line up of winners:
WSJ. Magazine’s first annual Innovator of the Year Awards celebrate the people and ideas changing the world
WSJ. Magazine has announced its inaugural Innovator of the Year Awards, honoring the most creative, disruptive, and influential individuals in the world today. In conjunction with the November issue of WSJ., seven winners will be honored at a dinner on Thursday, October 27, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The November issue of WSJ. will hit newsstands on Saturday, October 29, as part of WSJ Weekend.
“Our goal was to determine who is shaping our world the most creative, groundbreaking ways,” said Editor-in-Chief Deborah Needleman in announcing the awards, “whether it’s something we behold or live in, marvel at, participate in or consume.”
The winners of the 2011 WSJ. Magazine’s Innovator of the Year Awards are: Ai Weiwei (Art); Katie Grand (Fashion); Elon Musk(Technology); Bjarke Ingels (Architecture); Steve Ells (Food); Joris Laarman (Design); and The Giving Pledge, founded by Warren Buffetand Bill Gates (Philanthropy).
The Innovator of the Year Awards were chosen by editors of The Wall Street Journal, with input from a select group of experts in each field. The award itself was designed by the winner in the design category, Joris Laarman. This year’s awards are sponsored by Audi and Cartier.
The 2011 WSJ. Innovators of the Year
ART: Ai Weiwei, the acclaimed artist and creator of the Bejiing Olympics’ “bird’s nest” stadium, who became the worldwide symbol of free expression when he was jailed this year by the Chinese government. Artist Marina Abramovic will accept the award on his behalf.
FASHION: Katie Grand, the visionary stylist and right-hand woman to trailblazing designers such as Marc Jacobs and Miuccia Prada, whose ability to interpret and create new trends is unmatched. Designer Marc Jacobs will present the award to Grand.
TECHNOLOGY: Elon Musk, for revolutionizing three of the biggest industries in the world–automobiles, energy and space exploration–simultaneously. Musk envisions a world where cars run on electricity, where homes and businesses are powered by the sun, and where humans colonize Mars. Artist Tom Sachs, whose recent work is based on the imagery of space, will present the award to Musk.
ARCHITECTURE: Bjarke Ingels, for his wildly expressive structures, including the radical re-imagining of the New York high-rise apartment building, his commitment to sustainability and his philosophy of “pragmatic utopianism.” Richard Wurman, the author, architect and founder of the TED conferences, will present the award to Ingels.
FOOD: Steve Ells, chef and founder of Chipotle restaurants, for his dedication to sustainability, reinventing fast food and changing the way America eats. Presenting Ells with his award will be best-selling author and organic food advocate Jonathan Safran Foer.
DESIGN: Joris Laarman for seamlessly melding the invisible logic of science with the ornamental nature of design, mapping out a bold new aesthetic with robots and 3-D printers. Presenting the award to Laarman will be Murray Moss, founder of design art company Moss.
PHILANTHROPY: The Giving Pledge for its revolutionary effect on Philanthropy. Launched just over one year ago by Warren Buffett andBill Gates, The Giving Pledge has turned into the biggest fundraiser in the world, attracting 69 billionaires so far and a total value of more than $150 billion.
Dezeen Wire: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is the most powerful figure in the art world according to Art Review magazine’s annual Power 100 list, published today.
Ai Weiwei, who has risen from eleventh place last year, was detained by Chinese authorities for 81 days earlier this year, supposedly for “economic crimes,” and published an article in August that described Beijing as a prison and a city of violence. Art Review applaud his work for moving beyond the gallery or museum, dealing with “what’s happening now, around us, in the real world.”
Hans Ulrich Obrist & Julia Peyton-Jones, curators of the Serpentine Gallery in London, are at number two on the list.
See the full Power 100 list on Art Review’s website and see all our stories about Ai Weiwei here.
Dezeen Wire: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has described Beijing as a prison and a city of violence in an article published on the website of American magazine Newsweek.
The article was published despite Chinese authorities forbidding the artist from giving interviews, following his release in June from 81 days of detention.
Dezeen Wire: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been released on bail after two months in detention, which Xinhua news agency said was “because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes” – Guardian
Our third story about Mexican pilgrimage La Ruta del Peregrino features this linear stone pier by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
The pavilion, named The Sanctuary, angles up from the landscape to create a platform overlooking the Jalisco mountains.
The structure is stepped in profile to create a length of seating for resting pilgrims.
La Ruta del Peregrino is a 117km-long pilgrimage, along which each new structure provides a shelter and landmark.
Ai Weiwei is still missing after being detained by authorities at Beijing airport on 3 April.
Photography is by Iwan Baan – see more images of this project on his website.
See more stories about La Ruta del Peregrino on Dezeen »
Here is some more information about the wider project:
Ruta del Peregrino
Jalisco, Mexico
Ruta del Peregrino is a religious phenomenon centred and moved by the adoration to the virgin of talpa.
La Ruta del Peregrino (Pilgrim’s Route) stretches out on a distance of 117 kilometers.
Approximately two million people participate each year in this religious phenomenon coming from different states of México to walk through the mountain range of Jalisco, starting in the town of Ameca, ascending to el Cerro del Obispo at an altitude of 2000 meters above sea level, crossing the peak of Espinazo del Diablo to descend to it’s final destination in the town of Talpa de Allende to meet with the Virgin of Talpa as an act of devotion, faith and gratitude.
This religious voyage has taken place since the 17th century, for the pilgrims the act of faith is carried to penitence, the conditions of the route are harsh. This sacrifice carried with austerity is an essential part of the promise or offering that become the ritual of purification.
This project aims to provide the historical route with better conditions for the pilgrims as well as to maximize the social and economical profit for this area by taking advantage of this massive event. Based on a systematic vision the project becomes a sustainable site with different layers of meaning.
Click above for larger image
As we focus on the whole, the master plan consists of an ecological corridor with infrastructure and iconic architectural pieces that add to the religious ritual and also aim to appeal to a broader audience and allow the Route to have a flow of visitor beyond the religious.
This book focuses on the iconic narrative given to the Route with 7 pieces that strongly relate both to the extraordinary landscape and to the religious ritual, becoming the imaginary landmarks of a deeply rutted phenomenon. Each landmark by a different designer, a group of individual dialogues with specific sites and intentions that add up, to weave a single story.
Credits and Data
Project title: Sanctuary
Location: Estanzuela
State: Built
Architects: Fake Design
Team: Ai Weiwei, Andy Lee, André Murer
Title of whole project: Route of Pilgrim
Client: Secretaría de Turismo de Jalisco
Program: Masterplan of Route of Pilgrim
Location: From Ameca to Talpa de Allende, Jalisco, Mexico
Curatorial team: Tatiana Bilbao and Derek Dellekamp
Masterplan and project coordination: Rozana Montiel and Derek Dellekamp
Investigation team: Adiranne Montemayor, Carlos Zimbron
Invited architects and designers: Ai Weiwei / Fake Design (China), Luis Aldrete
(Mexico), Tatiana Bilbao (Mexico), Christ & Gantenbein AG Architekten (Switzerland), Dellekamp Arquitectos (Mexico), Elemental (Chile), Godoylab (Mexico), HHF architects (Switzerland), Periférica (Mexico), Taller TOA (Mexico)
Basic services- various- Godoylab
Environmental strategy- TOA|Taller de Operaciones Ambientales
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| Sanctuary Circle by Dellekamp and Periférica | Lookout Point by HHF Architects | Jübergtower Hemer Landmark |
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